With
these words Charles Bean, Australia's
Official War Historian, described the
battlefield of Dernancourt on the morning of
the 5th of April, 1918, strewn with the
bodies of the Australian dead. It was the
final tragic chapter in the story of the
47th Australian Infantry Battalion in the
First World War.

The 47th Battalion fought in some of the
First World War's bloodiest battles. From
their first calamitous experience of war
under the terrible shell fire of Pozieres,
to the costly and futile attacks on Mouquet
Farm and the frigid winters on the Somme
they suffered through the fighting on the
Western Front in 1916. In April of 1917 they
were trapped and almost surrounded at 1st
Bullecourt. A mere eight weeks later, they
'hopped the bags' at Messines where they
lost over half their number. In October they
fought and died by the score in the mud of
Passchendaele.

One of the shortest lived and most battle
hardened of the 1st Australian Imperial
Force's battalions, the 47th was formed in
Egypt in 1916 and disbanded two years later
having suffered one of the highest casualty
rates of any Australian unit. Their story is
remarkable for many reasons. Dogged by
command and discipline troubles and bled
white by the desperate attrition battles of
1916 and 1917, they fought on against a
determined and skilful enemy in battles
where the fortunes of war seemed stacked
against them at every turn. Not only did
they have the misfortune to be called into
some of the A.I.F.'s most costly campaigns,
chance often found them in the worst places
within those battles.

Finally, at the Battle of Dernancourt they
fought in the 4th Division's titanic
struggle to save Amiens from the great
German offensive of 1918. It was at
Dernancourt that the 47th Battalion found
itself squarely in the path of the heaviest
attack ever faced by Australians in this or
any war. Fatally weakened by their losses,
and under a cloud after the formal inquiry
into the battle, the 47th Battalion was
broken up. For the Queenslanders and
Tasmanians of the 47th Battalion,
disbandment meant not only the loss of their
battalion, but disgrace and heartbreak as
well. Worse still, it meant the ties of
comradeship and the bond to their fallen
mates were severed at one stroke. In their
own bitter words, they were 'thrown away'.

Though their story is one of
almost unrelieved tragedy, it is also story
of remarkable courage, endurance and
heroism. It is the story of the 1st A.I.F.
itself ― punished, beaten, sometimes reviled
for their discipline, they fought on ―
fewer, leaner and harder ― until final
victory was won. And at its end an
extraordinary gesture of mateship, the
remnants of the 47th Battalion reunited.
Having been scattered to other units after
their disbandment, the survivors gathered in
Belgium for one last photo together. Only 73
remained.